Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine, 1908-2000

By jacobgerdes

  • Birth

    Birth
    Willard Van Orman Quine is born June 25, 1908 in Akron, Ohio (Weil, 2000).

  • Graduates from Harvard

    Graduates from Harvard
    1932, Quine graduates with a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. He would write his dissertation on Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (Hylton & Kemp, 2019). After graduating, Dr. Quine would spend more than 40 years teaching at Harvard while publishing 20 books and over 150 scholarly articles (Weil, 2000).

  • Two Dogmas of Empiricism

    1951, Dr. Quine publishes one of his most know papers, Two Dogmas of Empiricism. In the paper, Quine analyzes the differences between analytic truths and synthetic truths. Basically, how do we know what we know? He explains that the definition of something relies on cognitive synonymy and that there is no difference between analytic and synthetic statements. He says that the only difference is a "metaphysical article of faith." (Picazo, 2013)

  • Indeterminacy of Translation

    Indeterminacy of Translation
    1960, Quine continues his studies in philosophy of analytics and publishes Indeterminacy of Translation. A very controversial topic and hypothesis that states there is never a perfect translation and that word need context for meaning.

  • Retirement

    Retirement
    Dr. Quine retires from his position at Harvard University but would continue his research and lectures across the country (Weil, 2000).

  • Death

    Death
    Dr. Quine dies at the age of 92 in Boston, Massachusetts. While lecturing and while retired, Quine loved traveling and had traveled to over 100 countries and all 50 states. He has been described as the most influential philosophers in the 20th century and has left a legacy on analytical science and philosophy. This is a photo of him traveling to the last state he needed to visit to complete his list, North Dakota.